OPINION: Zinke's position on coal sales challenged
As reported in a short news story in the Daily Inter Lake on July 10, the Obama administration is presently trying to correct what it believes are inappropriate sales of Montana coal deposits — by which the coal companies involved are trying to avoid paying the state of Montana the full value of its coal.
In defense of their actions, the coal companies involved point out that the laws they are abiding by have been on the books since 1980. What this article failed to point out, however, is how the Citizens United ruling of the Supreme Court in 2010 has changed everything. We did not used to allow so much money to be given to any candidate as to enable a single corporation to essentially “buy” a candidate.
It is therefore relevant to note that the person most strongly resisting any change in those potentially outdated laws of 1980 is Montana’s own congressional representative, Ryan Zinke. In my opinion, Zinke’s recent election to the U.S. House was greatly facilitated by donations from the same fossil fuel corporation that is involved in the contested sales.
The question now, of course, is whose interests is Rep. Zinke serving in this case? Surely, the citizens of Montana would prefer to receive the full value of their assets, would they not? Additional questions for Mr. Zinke might include — Hasn’t Montana already given away enough of its natural assets throughout its history only to experience the “bust” portions of those adventures after the corporate profits have been reaped? And is Rep. Zinke really suggesting that Montana’s future depends on becoming a “carbon pusher” to our already carbon-contaminated world?
The passage of Citizens United has created changes in our election processes that are unbelievably favorable to the well-heeled. The potential “return” for Peabody Coal’s “investments” in Montana’s “public servant” in this case are enormous — on the order about $19 million per year that would otherwise go to the state of Montana. It is increasingly important, therefore, that the general public carefully watch their collective assets and their public servants, both of which now appear to be “for sale” in Montana under our election laws.
And just for the record, I did read Congressman Zinke’s letter in the July 12 issue of the Daily Inter Lake in which he tried to explain his position on this issue. I saw nothing there, however, that changed a word of what I have written above.
His statement included some financial mumbo-jumbo that still leaves the state of Montana short about $19 million per year and implied that Montanans need not be concerned about basic laws of nature that are operative elsewhere. He describes the generation of new jobs via the development of “clean coal” technologies — even though there is no such thing as a clean coal power plant.
He surely knows that every single carbon atom in those two-mile-long trains arriving at all coal-fired power plants is converted to carbon dioxide and emitted into the atmosphere. He also surely knows that coal is one of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuel, producing only half as much energy per CO2 molecule emitted as natural gas while also emitting other pollutants, such as mercury.
I am sure that Congressman Zinke and his friends at Peabody Coal know all of this — they are surely not that dumb. They just hope you are.
Grimsrud is a resident of Liberty Lake, Washington.